I wrote this line and took this photo last year in a time of trauma. Everything I'd known was not as it seemed.

All I could do while the world and global society around me was melting down, and my sense of self and life felt shattered, was to find a way back to my truest self and the life path I needed to have faith I was on.

Journaling was about the only way that I could make sense of who I was in that moment, and what I wanted, and realign to who I was, and who I thought I might have been.

Releasing old stories never shared before and rewriting my vision of my identity and life ahead filled me with a sense of hope, where hope had previously been lost. At this time, I felt I was on the edge of a paradise lost when actually, this diversion back to my real destiny was leading to me towards a real paradise that was waiting for me, all along.

Before I believed in God, I thought I only had my intuition to rely on to guide my way.

Now, I believe that our intuition is an internal magnet but we must also be open to connecting it externally to our destiny. I think of destiny like the matching magnet that pulls us to be who we truly are and go where our souls are meant to be.

The only way I found to realign to that, was to find a way to let go of the resistance in my mind, body and spirit and outer life experience that was causing any internal and external pain.

Through weekly psychology sessions, the complex PTSD symptoms started to settle: the daily grounding and meditation practices started to ease my worried mind, the new ability to self-soothe, was a balm of tender touch on my emotional wounds. The simplicity of a few healthy ingredients on a small plate started to nourish my depleted body until my taste returned.

More than ever before, I felt an urgency to get well, to rebuild my strength, to reawaken my Wild Woman again, who had been suffocated and smothered with the narcissistic desires and demands of a man whose story was far from true.

The reveal of a chronic painful past, of trauma from childhood into my twenties and beyond, was not one I was ready for, but one, that I finally had to face, even though I was at my weakest to cope with it all, than I'd ever been.

Through the dark came a renewed light. I felt awakened to the beauty of life, to the gift that is our self, and a full understanding that we are here, for a purpose, to create and contribute.

Why else would we be here?

Why else do we have a wisdom and skills to share?

We were born as an act of creation, and it is not our place to stifle that creative evolution and revolution with our dramas and self-doubt.

A man or woman might declare and be told that this is selfish to want this:

"I want to live an empowered, wild and wonderful life. I want to spend my time creating my ideas and pouring my wisdom into creations that will nourish me and inspire others. I want to earn and contribute to society with my creativity and my compassion, and my power to heal."

Why would this desire and wild declaration to stand up for who they are and what they want to create, be any less valuable than if they had declared;

"I want to live an ordinary and simple life, spending my time serving and supporting the ideas and wisdom of another creator or entrepreneur's business. I want to contribute to my family and society with my non-creative skills."

The world needs a balance of people with different skills, strengths and mindsets but they are all valuable, they all matter, and that includes the creators and the creative thinkers.

The awakening last year stirred up the fire within me to help other creative and entrepreneurial women who've been lost and suffering, to know it is time to change your story and to wake up and step-up.

The sooner you realign your life and business with your heart and your art, the faster you will see results for you and others that bring daily joy.

WILD WOMAN, I INVITE YOU TO WAKE UP FROM YOUR SILENT RETREAT.

We know that you have been hurt, have healed, and been hurt again, and most likely will in future too. But next time, you will have the inner and outer strength to carry on. We all do.

It is time for you to realign your one life with the woman you know yourself to be.

To say 'yes' to creating and practising your craft daily.

To repurpose your message in your business so your working days are a soulful sanctuary where you are caring and contributing from your heart, and your art, and your healing hands.

What's it going to take to realign?

Do what it takes to shake off the shadows, and lift your face and heart up to the light. To hear the sound of your intuition and to connect with your faith and destiny.

If it takes a daily visit to the therapist or the gym, a trip to the comedy club, a daily call with your mum or best friend, a chance to escape to the woods, or surfing in the ocean, or a retreat in a log cabin for a month with your love, or a coaching program where you are fully supported back to realignment, just do what you need to do to reconnect with the Wild Woman you.

Free yourself of the resistance within you and the fear that is based on old stories. Open up to tuning into the resonance within and around you.

Feel that destiny magnet that is waiting for you, pulling you to take a step towards the wild and wonderful life path you are meant to be on.

You might learn that you are actually where you were supposed to be, with who you are meant to be with when you choose to quieten the noise within.

You need no-one's permission but yours, to give yourself what you need to realign and heal.

Love, Marie

Copyright and Sharing Guidelines:

If you wish to share this article, please credit the author, Marie Milligan and a full active URL link to this blog post.

To use a direct quote from the article, please credit the author, Marie Milligan and www.wildwomendo.co.uk website.

To use the image from this post for non-commercial reasons, please credit the photographer,

To use the image for commercial purposes, including your business Instagram or Blog, please email Marie for permission.

When I was a young child, about 4 or 5 in this photo, I was wild, creative, curious, playful, determined, fearless, stubborn, adventurous, naughty, smart, and loving.

I hadn’t yet taken in influence into my belief system about my sense of self or my worth. It wasn’t until a few years later, that my outward persona started to change: I seemed serious, solemn, quiet, hard-working, sensible, rebellious, resistant, cautious, anxious and often, afraid.

As I passed into my teens, I was called stuck-up, or selfish, because others mistook my withdrawn or resistant self as judging or self-centred. If only they’d known the secrets I was hiding, they’d have understood that I was still that fun-loving, wild and playful girl, but she was now more focused on protecting herself from further trauma, hurt or shame.

I poured my feelings into my academic studies, reading voraciously and obsessing over my multi-instrumental music practice. It seemed I found a natural talent for all things creative, literature-based, historical and analytical, and did very well at school despite the traumas (it's amazing the power of getting lost in creativity or the arts of others when you want to hide from the truth of real life).

However, no matter the high results, I didn't believe in myself anymore and sometimes what other people close to me perceived as encouragement, served to only add to this limiting belief. “You only got 98%; what happened to the 2%?” I was once told. No wonder my perfectionist persona developed where I pushed myself daily to do well and be approved of.

Only years later, after training as a Coach, experiencing CBT therapy, and working with many clients with similar patterns, did I understand about our personas and the characters we play that represents a value we stand for or an intrinsic need.

Throughout all of those times, my Wild Child was still there, still craving to be wild, free, adventurous, creative, playful and fun, but I simultaneously needed to feel safe, protected, secure and loved in order for that to happen. But, I didn't know how to give that to myself or to ask it of others in a calm way, that didn't lead to further misunderstanding or conflict.

I later learned at the age of 39 this year, that I also needed to know how to give those values to myself back then, so that I had the ability to ‘self-soothe’ and not rely on others to make me feel good or safe.

I've learned to understand that those that love us and try to protect us now or in our past are also working with their own psychology and physiology based on their own beliefs and needs and how they like to give you love and try to protect you, is not always a match for what you need.

Being able to have a 'non-violent communication' or conversation with someone about what you want or need or what you'd like to change can be life-changing.What a difference that insight would have made back then. At least, it's making a difference to my life and relationships now, and to those clients I work with.

Now, as an adult woman, I work 1-1 with my coaching clients on helping other women understand their version of a Wild Woman and how does that connect with their Wild Child self?

We look at the personas they play that they love or loathe and what values or needs do they have. We explore what influential voices or experiences started to form their limiting beliefs that later in life are in the way of their creative passions and their business success.

When we start to reveal our characters and get to know them well, it is easier to rewrite our mind’s story of who we are now and then.

We are able to then rewrite our life and business script that finally gives us the permission to be our self (all parts), to love our selves, and to live and work in a way that feels true and fulfilling for us.

If you are in any way feeling lost or questioning who you are and what you’re capable of, cast your mind back to who you were as a child before influence set in. Reconnect with your ‘wild child’ (who was free to a point). She has a lot of clues to guide you back in alignment with your creative 'Wild Woman' self.

If this post resonates with you, please feel free to comment below, share with a friend who might want to read it to, or email me if you wish. I’d love to hear your story and support you if you have a desire or need. You might also like to read my post on How to Find Your Wild Side..

Love, Marie

Copyright. If you share or copy this post to a third person, or online site (website or social media) you must fully credit author "Marie Milligan" and a link to this webpage. This includes quotes or social media reposts, use of quotes on images, or any auditory reference to the post.

I was recently sent an email via this site from an inspiring woman named Megan Goudy, a student at a college in South Carolina, USA. She's taking a Women's Literature class and for her final project, she's chosen the topic of the Wild Woman after reading Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Her exploration is 'who they are, why they matter, and how to become one.'

She wrote to ask me,

What do you think is the single most important thing a woman can do to find her own wild side?

— Megan Goudy

Not only was I inspired by her topic but her willingness to connect and ask for my view. It actually struck a chord and rather than a one sentence response, I crafted this spontaneous blog post as my reply. As you can see, this topic is one close to my heart and what I stand for in Wild Women Do! If you've 10 minutes to spare, get yourself a cuppa and take a read.

*****

Her wild side was never lost, in order to be found, she simply needs to reconnect with it. A woman will find her wild side when she listens in. If she stops searching for it externally, she'll find that version of herself within. When she quietens her mind and reconnects with her whole body and soul, she will sense and feel who she is at her core.

As an adult Wild Woman, she will reconnect with her wild side when she gives herself permission to play again. Give herself time to discover, to explore all the characters and versions of herself. Also, travels outside her comfort zone, out in the wild world.

She will find her when she takes time for herself, does what feels good and nourishes her. When she embraces life and decides to be in the moment. Relishing and savouring it all. Letting go of stress, fear or worry.

She can only do that, guilt free, when she decides to love all versions of herself – the fearless and the frightened – and believe in herself and what she is capable of, no matter what limiting beliefs have formed along her life journey.

A woman will know she can and often does play many characters in her life stemming from her personality, but also influenced by who she is with, where she is, and how she is feeling at the time.

Her wild side is no doubt, the character that represents (at the times she plays her), the freer version of self, the woman who is courageous, bold, brave, daring, strong, resilient, and allows herself to take risks. She champions her values of independence, freedom, courage, creativity, curiosity, fun, joy, exploration, discovery and truth.

She will recognise her wild side, as the part of herself that shares the values that were perhaps true for her as a young child before any influence got in the way. As a child, she would have (we hope) embraced these values and explored and played with abandon because she was fearless, she was light, and most of all, she was self-loving. She didn't yet know any other way to be or feel.

If she acted in a way that was non-conformist, she might have found she was labelled “naughty” or “disobedient”, or a "wild child”; wild representing the value of rebellious or disrespectful here. In fact, she was representing her version of freedom, independence, courage, resilience, curiosity, creativity, fun, bravery, and so, on.

As she grew, she listened to views or opinions of others and started to form beliefs about herself, whether truth or a perspective. She was taught how she must live or what she must do to belong (or in most instances, to be ‘kept safe’ and conform). She made a decision how to be and how to act based on the belief system she accepted as ‘truth’.

This catalyst point in her self-development may have lead to the wilder, more authentic version of herself being tamed down, quietened or hidden in some way. She somehow found herself living a life less colourful, confined by social or familial boundaries. Until the moment she has an awakening.

In my experience, at the extreme cases, it’s often at a break-down or traumatic time where the pain of not loving yourself or the life you’re performing becomes unbearable. You know change must happen or you feel your will to live or your wild soul will die.

There’ll be that moment she says, ‘times up’ on self-doubt, on hiding by playing a passive character in a life she doesn’t want, directed by someone else’s vision or rules.

She will feel awakened that she must seek out her truth and see the world with a fresh perspective.

She will decide "enough is enough" and take a course of development to realign to her true self, and the life and career path she always wanted.

When ready, she will once again, know who she is and trust she can "take a walk on the wild side” without losing stability or respectability. Quite the opposite.

When a woman finds her wild side, reconnects with her Wild Woman and walks her truth, she is an example of a woman who is loving and is living without regret.

What in the world might be different then?

What is the single most important thing a woman can do to find her wild side? Megan and I would love to hear your thoughts below.

Love, Marie

Copyright. If you share or copy this post to a third person, or online site (website or social media) you must fully credit author "Marie Milligan" and a link to this webpage. This includes quotes or social media reposts, use of quotes on images, or any auditory reference to the post.

Inspiration to have the mindset and methods to live, create and impact in your business in alignment with your Wild Woman, creative source.

Emails are written and sent to you by Marie Milligan, a professionally trained Life and Business Coach.

First Name

Last Name

Email Address

We collect your data to provide you with newsletters, alert you to product, service and brand updates that may be of interest and importance to you. Our Terms and Privacy Policy pages explain how we use your data once collected and the third party service providers we use to send you digital communication.

Welcome to Wild Women Do. It is our pleasure to have you join our community of inspirational women ready to start living, creating and doing business that impacts, in alignment with her creative source. If you’d like to connect with us at any time, please email Marie Milligan, Founder of Wild Women Do at mariemilligan@wildwomendo.co.uk.